Contacts Missing From "New" Outlook After Upgrade From Windows Mail

This response will not help you but: I don't think MSFT knows. They just build apps will nilly to ~70% completion then, you're on your own with hacks, issues and workarounds. Par for the course.

Hi, Linda,

If your conversion goes smoothly--and Microsoft had designed and tested for all situations🙄--you should automatically see your contacts in the new Outlook, regardless of whether you are running Windows 10 or 11 and regardless of whether you were using the Mail desktop app or Microsoft Office Suite's Outlook (desktop app) to manage your mail and contacts.

Were you running the Mail app on a PC to manage your contacts before the conversion? If so, then do check that you have granted permission to view your contacts as I posted toward the bottom of page 4 of this thread. Don't worry, it's just a setting checkbox that doesn't delete any personal data.

If you were using MS Office's Outlook on your desktop, do the same check for that app.

If you were using Outlook strictly on the Web, the change should have been automatic. Desktop app permission settings will have no impact.

Contacts are actually stored on the Microsoft server, so they're not lost, just invisible to your new (web-based) Outlook. There is no need to re-enter them. So, if you still cannot see them after checking permission settings, I suggest requesting a callback from Microsoft Support. They can make whatever adjustments are necessary on the server-side to ensure the contacts are visible.

Note: you will need to wade through several off-putting irrelevant FAQs (and maybe an AI chat-bot🙄) first, but eventually you will get to a prompt asking if you would like a callback. It costs you nothing but time. Also, you do not need to allow them remote access to your PC, as the fix is done server-side. Just be insistent.

Best of luck!🤞

LostInSpace88

I tried to use the New Outlook, ONCE. It's supposed to be reading off the same server but all these issues???? It didn't work from the get go, I didn't think it would from my extensive experience using their..................products, so I won't/don't use it. It's 2024, if they cant get a CONTACTS app working after all these decades. then more fool us for using their................products.

NO ONE has time to jump through these hoops. I could understand back in the 90s but after three decades?? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

I really hope people that are trying to use it get it working though.

Hi, My M365,

I completely agree*!* It's arrogance and greed matched with utter incompetence! That is why I am still stubbornly continuing to use my Mail app on Windows 10! I will "upgrade" (or so they call it) my operating system and mail apps when I know the new stuff is working with only a few minor bugs... or they force me off as they're threatening to do starting autumn 2024.🙄

Although I suspect this is all just a ploy to force us onto Web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps for which they can charge us ongoing monthly usage fees--rather than the one-off payment licence I prefer--the latest Microsoft justification is that this new Web-based Outlook is to close some security holes in the desktop Mail app.🤨

Periodically, I have been checking whether the "new" Outlook was working to my satisfaction, then reverting. But, as Microsoft has yet to prioritise making an offline mail-contacts-calendar app under the new regime😠--I'm staying put. Like many more than the Web-privileged MS developers, I don't always have Internet access, so need offline access (and preferably also copies), including the ability to efficiently write drafts, connecting to the Internet only to actually send and receive.

Fortunately, I discovered that by simply deleting the New Mail app, I could shut off the irritating inefficient forced switching to new Outlook--then having to switch back sending feedback with containing ever more all caps! I suspect I'll have to keep deleting any new installations that may come with (equally annoying) monthly updates. But so far, so quiet.🤞

Best of luck!

LostInSpace88

If I'd known New Outlook was a work in progress, I'd not have started using it. Very disappointing that the contact system does not share to all email accounts. Really disappointed with this. And the fact that a Windows 10 update deleted all my contacts and email accounts from my old laptop completely. So having to recreate an extensive contact list again, from scratch... :(